Friday, May 27, 2011

Last October, we covered a problem occurring on college campuses across the country, where students are replacing food with alcohol in order to keep the weight under control. The disorder has come to be called ‘drunkorexia’ and it has quickly become a major concern worth discussing. The typical college student expects to drink several times throughout the week; alcoholic beverages like beer have a high calorie content which is unattractive to young girls trying to make an impression amongst their peers. Knowing that they are going to drink alcohol students will make a preemptive move to restrict their calories throughout the day so they can drink alcohol at night without gaining weight.

Most people who have consumed alcohol one time or another are aware that drinking on an empty stomach is never a good idea, unless one's plan is to get completely annihilated. As you might imagine this can be extremely dangerous for those attending parties that might have to drive home and girls are more likely to be put in a position where they are taken advantage of in a black-out state. It does not take much alcohol to cause a blackout with a female weighting 115 pounds and no food in their stomach. KIMT News 3 reports that ‘drunkorexia’ is especially dangerous for heavy drinkers. A Prevention Specialist in Iowa, Jay Pedelty, told the news program, “Two thirds of deaths associated with alcohol are from impairment problems. So this, starving myself so I’ll become profoundly and significantly intoxicated, carries a significant risk for death or other health problems.”

According to the report, the majority of ‘drunkorexia’ sufferers are young college women, as would be expected due to the importance imposed upon them regarding their image. Harvard School of Public Health conducted a study showing that two out of five college students take part in binge drinking. A study in the Journal of Drug and Alcohol Education found that 14 percent of the almost 700 students surveyed said they skip meals before drinking alcohol to cut down on calories.